It was while we were being chased by zombie-like things in the residential blocks of Noon Station in Se-gwang Special City that I spotted the door to the Moonlight Tattoo Shop.
We rushed it open and tumbled inside—only to find a blue mascot sitting with the tattooist.
...Even for a ghost story, it felt like a nonsense daydream you’d have in a nap.
What is this?
For a second I thought I’d tripped the station’s gimmick and fallen into a state that reads “eternal nap” and means neck-turned death.
But it was the real situation.
Especially with the three Daydream researchers behind me panting like they were about to stop breathing.
“...Hello.”
Before the tattooist—who had stood up—the blue mascot ran over first, as if to greet us with fervor.
WELCOME
And the big, cute, chibi dragon costume suit hugged me.
GOOD JOB
GOOD CHILD
Plush softness, and from within it I could faintly hear the background music of Blue Dream Theme Park...
“...Thank you.”
Where previous fear had been, a strange sadness settled in.
[Oh, a showy hug! This mascot still doesn’t know the meaning of keeping up appearances.]
[Well, a pool mascot would hardly know such a word. Unlike my friend here, who runs a resort with such dignity.]
And you really are consistent...
For a moment, a swell of feeling that was odd enough to be unsettling slipped away. I gave a sheepish smile and asked:
“Um, but... shouldn’t you be at the theme park? How are you here?”
I myself had a manager who could sub for me, which let me leave the resort.
Back on Deathly Shortcuts, the blue mascot could do no more than ooze out as a blob of black water through a phone—so how did it have a complete form now?
HERE
IT’S OKAY
Huh?
As a mascot, my identity caught more of the meaning packed into those short words.
It’s okay because it’s the Moonlight Tattoo Shop.
This shop isn’t a place fixed to a specific time and space so much as it’s like a “situation” that defers time. So the shop’s door appears in many places, in many forms, all at once, only to perform the function of an entrance, and entering the shop is merely to experience the situation-of-receiving-a-tattoo...
S-stop.
Right at the point where the experience tips into something hard for a human to understand, I shut down the thought. If I were in the state of 130666 I might be able to comprehend it, but I wanted to keep my human mind.
Even if that property only holds inside Se-gwang Special City.
In any case, it means it doesn’t count as having left the theme park.
So maybe that’s why there was an entrance even in quarantined Se-gwang.
Hold on—if that’s so...
Pointing to the three researchers, I said:
“Could you send these people out to a different location than where they entered, by any chance?”
If it’s through the Moonlight Tattoo Shop’s door, couldn’t we escape Se-gwang through the Moonlight Tattoo Shop?
Say, into a ghost story like “Vacancy”—survival would be much easier. Like the taxi ghost story, a way to move by hopping between ghost stories...
“...!?”
But the tattooist, after blinking vacantly at my words, shook her head with a look of great embarrassment.
No matter how I read it, it was the look of someone thinking, What kind of nonsense is that supposed to be?
Like a driver hearing a pedestrian, who just jumped in front of a car at a red light, shout that they’ll pay if he’ll give them a ride like a taxi.
Hmm.
So the shop’s door isn’t operated that way.
A shame, but I was grateful enough just to be able to catch our breath away from the turned-neck entities.
And then there was the help we could get at the Moonlight Tattoo Shop.
Tattoos.
There are few ghost-story products more useful than that.
I opened my mouth a different way first.
“Did you come to get a tattoo as well, Mr. Mascot?”
I was guessing they’d come for some purpose related to tattoos, in one way or another.
But an unexpected answer came back.
NO
I ALWAYS KNEW
...You already had a connection with the tattooist?
I FOUND
IT
The blue mascot thumped its own chest.
GOOD CHILD
WELL DONE
Thanks to my getting rid of Magic Bunny and splitting the red zone of the YuKwae Theme Park fifty-fifty, the expanded domain and authority let it find the Moonlight Tattoo Shop’s door... or so it seemed.
But then.
“How are you two acquainted...”
I looked between them—and realized.
The tattooist is from that abyssal city.
...Mermaid Grave.
Shimmering Dragon Palace.
And a dragon-shaped mascot running Blue Dream Theme Park...
The way those strange keywords aligned.
“...Are you two from the same place?”
......
In the silence, the blue dragon mascot’s round eyes gleamed in the shop’s artificial moonlight.
NOT IMPORTANT
It’s no longer important.
What I originally was, what identity I had, in what environment, playing what role.
Because—
USELESS
It can’t be taken back.
The identity left within the YuKwae Theme Park’s mascot has been worn down for a very long time, and there’s no way to quit being a mascot. There’s nowhere to return to after taking off the head.
So it’s useless, and unimp—
“No. It matters.”
I cut in.
“It matters—otherwise you wouldn’t have come here when you’re not even planning to get a tattoo. Please don’t say that.”
UNDERSTOOD
The blue mascot drooped horns and mane and bowed its head like its spirit had been dampened.
...I don’t even know why I flared up.
“I’m sorry. I was too sharp. In any case—congratulations on finding each other.”
THANK YOU
The atmosphere warmed again.
...If there was one more small problem, it was that the researchers were staring, mouths agape, as if taking in a rare spectacle.
Ah.
In their eyes, it must have looked like a mad scene of entities from different darknesses having a friendly chat.
“Isn’t that—er, that person a mascot from the YuKwae Theme Park? What is this shop? Tattoos? Ha ha, you don’t run it for people, do you?”
And from the back, Deputy Lee Yeonhwa rolled her eyes, all but swallowing the counter’s informational notices as she raked them with her gaze, then met my eyes.
The project researcher kept stealing glances at the tattoo machine in the center.
“...Is that really your first question here?”
“Ha ha ha, of course!”
With a look that said what else could possibly be important, Gwak Jegang stared at me.
Those eyes seemed to be spinning.
“An unknown world not yet defined, which people cannot yet understand, but which manifestly exists all around us! There’s no topic of research that stirs curiosity more than that.”
“......”
“We’re in a transition period: too early to explore space, the earth thoroughly surveyed. How lucky we are, in what might have been a boring age, to have darkness!”
Pure curiosity and enjoyment swirled inside him.
Familiar.
That particular feel of one who examines darkness with the mindset of an observer, fascinated.
It’s the feeling a wiki author has, too.
...So that’s why their approach to ghost stories felt similar to mine.
Bitter as that was, the flip side made the researchers’ behavior chilling.
That someone who enjoyed ghost stories as fiction and someone experiencing real human casualties could think alike.
...Well. In the end, in the “Darkness Exploration Record,” the research team is the mouthpiece for the author’s exploration ideas.
But in reality, they’re completely different from me.
...A jolt of discordance surged up.
The people in front of me—and this place—felt utterly alien.
It was a sense I’d consciously kept pressed down when I was with earlier survey crews.
A sense of realizing that, essentially, I can’t help but be a little different from the people of this world.
The closest thing would be...
Homesickness.
...But feeling that won’t help.
I probably can’t go back anyway.
Even if I rode a wish ticket again, I wouldn’t know how to phrase it to get back.
I’m moving only by the purpose of at least finding out why I was called.
“......”
Maybe the reason I snapped at the blue mascot a moment ago was because, perhaps, it felt like our circumstances were similar...
No—enough.
Thinking about it... changes nothing.
I shouldn’t dwell on this. The more I do, the more I’ll collapse, like the state of 130666.
Do the work.
“Um, there’s something I’ve been wanting to show you.”
I unbuttoned my shirt and bared the tattoo around my heart for the tattooist to see, just a little.
The one I bought during the VIP shop at the Space Mall—the tattoo that organizes my contamination.
“!”
The tattooist’s eyes widened; she looked as if she were reading down the circular composition of letters inked there.
“...I had it done with a device called the Moonlight Tattoo Machine, which was similar to the tattoo machine here. ...It made me think of this place.”
I didn’t need to say that the mind of a moonlight tattooist dwelled within it; the tattooist already knew.
I made a request to the tattooist, who was staring, eyes trembling, at the tattoo above my heart.
“Could I get a cover-up? Like I did before on the other tattoo.”
Like when my inventory tattoo was enhanced here and gained inventory functionality.
If so, the tattoo over my heart might let me draw out contamination more deftly and tuck it back in more easily.
Conveniently, I mean.
But the tattooist shook her head hard.
“...?”
She ran to the counter, pulled out an older notice, and showed it to me.
[Wait!]
Before you get a cover-up or removal, take time to look carefully over your existing tattoo again.
You might discover a new, genuine appeal you hadn’t noticed until now.
Then, with a marker, the tattooist added a line on the laminated back and showed me.
Please accept and enjoy your tattoo more.
...So she won’t do it, is what that means.
Maybe because it’s a tattoo by the same moonlight tattooist, she was reluctant to cover it.
I looked up, thinking I’d try persuading her once more, but her eyes looked resolute.
...Hmph.
Rather than badgering and getting tagged as a problem customer and thrown out, better to aim for the next chance.
Even putting that aside, this is a professional’s advice; better to take it.
In that case, pick something else.
“Um... Mr. Cat. Are you going to stay longer in this darkness?”
“No.”
I answered Deputy Lee Yeonhwa kindly.
“Nothing has changed. You’ll go back to the platform and hide in the hydrant.”
Only—
“After we get a simple procedure here.”
“...?!”
The researchers’ eyes started to whirl.
“H-here...?”
“Yes.”
I gripped their shoulders and spoke softly.
“Don’t worry.”
“......”
“When it’s over, you’ll be sincerely grateful.”
...Saying it like that really does make it sound like a ghost story.
***
“Hah—”
Deputy Lee Yeonhwa ran the alley, dragging breath from a mouth that tasted faintly of sugar burn.
It felt like taking the full brunt of a desk worker’s karma for living on research without exercise.
When I get out I’m signing up for regular workouts, I swear.
But the gritted thought itself meant she had some room to think...
“Huff.”
Deputy Lee glanced at the tattoo sticker stuck inside her wrist.
An eye shrouded in opaque, hazy ink.
Like a shaped fog, it was a small tattoo that actually looked aesthetically decent.
—It will probably hide your presence. If you wear it too long, you might truly become unperceivable and be forgotten, so remove it as soon as you reach the hydrant.
It was the tattoo sticker Mr. Cat “recommended” to them.
Of course, the moment she heard that, Deputy Lee—ever the seasoned darkness researcher—asked about the price first...
—Do you have anything related to the sea?
—N-no.
With a look that said I figured, Mr. Cat gladly paid the cost of their items for the researchers.
—You’ll pay me back later.
That line was highly ominous.
But the sticker’s effect was certain.
The turned-neck did not chase her.
Whenever she ran into them beyond the alleys, she only had to sprint the other way and avoid “accidental encounters.”
—Go on ahead!
...Even if that other-team researcher hadn’t shoved her at the tattoo-shop entrance—an act of selfishness—so long as no one did anything rash, everyone could have moved safely.
Truly the Director Ho project team—what a character...
But Deputy Lee also knew.
That, in truth, that character was about average for a research team.
...Whew.
She needed caffeine. She had no energy left to be angry. Research alone was fun...
She fought fatigue instead of rage and moved her feet again.
...For the record, from a little earlier, an announcement-like voice had been ringing down the alleys as well.
[Get into the hydrant!]
[Silver hydrants are safe houses in this darkness!]
It seemed like someone had propped a fruit-vendor truck somewhere in the alleys and was playing a recorded message.
At first she assumed it was simply Mr. Cat’s kindly instruction to tell any remaining survivors how to live.
But soon she realized it wasn’t that.
The stairs...!
When she finally dashed down the stairs toward the platform and looked back, she was met with an unexpected sight.
“Good lord.”
The residential district was engulfed in flames.
Black smoke and the reek of char clotted in her nose; hot smoke, whipped by wind, touched her skin.
“......!”
Feeling the fire at her back begin to heat her, Deputy Lee ran down, yanked open the platform hydrant door, and slipped inside.
Thump.
Her heart pounded.
By the time she caught her breath and peeled off the tattoo sticker, Section Chief Gwak flung the same hydrant door open and shouted:
“Did you see it, Deputy Lee? It’s on fire! It’s all going up in smoke!”
“......”
“Looks like those announcements were for this! Though I’d guess every out-of-shape researcher was already dead by then, to be honest. Ha ha ha!”
Then a realization knifed through Deputy Lee’s mind.
This is it.
This was, indeed, the method Mr. Cat had hit upon.
To end nap time, using a clock or two as an alarm doesn’t represent this vast space.
In that case...
Then you just erase the space’s symbolism itself.
Erase the houses you can nap in, the comfort, the Nap Shelter itself.
And the most convenient way to erase it.
A method you can deduce inversely from the premise that those inside hydrants are safe.
Arson...!!
Thus Mr. Cat burned all of Noon Station.
And even so, to be safe against what might happen, he sent them to the platform hydrant separated from the concourse.
Of course, none of this is something a normal field survey team deployed into a darkness could do...
It’s a method executable by one who is not a person.
“......”
Several dozen minutes later.
Inside the hydrant, Deputy Lee swallowed and listened anxiously to the sounds outside.
Imagining the stairwell view glowing as if at sunset, from the blaze.
Calculating when the flames would have swept everything clean.
And—
“...Section Chief Gwak.”
“Hm?”
Thirty minutes earlier:
—Aaaah!
...She envisaged the fate of the Director Ho project researcher who, after finally reaching the platform, let out a bizarre scream and bolted out of the hydrant.
“Do you know where the other team’s researcher went?”
“Why ask me that, Deputy?”
“...You came into the hydrant later than I did.”
“Yeah, and?”
“Was that because you were doing something to the next hydrant over before you came?”
“......”
“......”
Gwak Jegang burst out laughing.
“Oh, the residential district’s burning, so I wanted to know if you really wouldn’t burn to death even if you were inside a hydrant smack in the middle of it!”
Ah.
“So I just put a little something in the other hydrant. And I did put an out-of-order sign on this hydrant.”
Thock.
He tapped the hydrant lightly.
“Still, to go all the way up the stairs! Tsk tsk, that’s a failure to understand Mr. Cat. Or call it slow on the uptake...”
“...Section Chief.”
Deputy Lee ground her teeth.
“The odds that he’ll burn to death before getting into a residential-district hydrant are quite high.”
“Of course that could happen, but hey—gotta try!”
Gwak grinned and added:
“Won’t it be a jackpot if we verify it!”
“......”
“But let’s keep it from Mr. Cat, shall we? If his impression of researchers gets any worse and we all die, who’ll get to study today’s exploration, eh? Ha ha ha!”
Deputy Lee clenched pale lips.
Outside, the sound of flames had quieted.
And soon they realized that Mr. Cat’s method had worked.
Astonishingly.
“Remarkable!”
And whether misfortune or luck, the “remarkable” they were about to witness from Mr. Cat didn’t end there.
Because the very first thing Mr. Cat did upon emerging from the ashen residential district was this:
“It was you.”
“...!”
He seized Gwak Jegang by the collar and hauled him up.